


Flesh Mechanic

by Aris



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Depressed Stiles, Hurt Stiles, Insecure Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Pack Feels, Panic Attacks, Sad Stiles Stilinski, Self Confidence Issues, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aris/pseuds/Aris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe you notice the sky is a little bleaker and the days are a bit longer, and maybe you want to ignore it. Your blood runs black and your heart is autumn leaves, and then you have to stop and acknowledge the yellowing tint to your skin as you die from the inside out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The thing is, Stiles is used to it.

It's kind of always been this way, and it hurts to think that, stings a little at the edges, but it's the truth. His dad is a good guy, a Sheriff, but that's exactly it - good guys spend their whole lives trying to stop the bad guys, and they never get their happy ending. John is hardly ever home between the murders and the break ins and underage drinking. Stiles makes him dinner and leaves it out, and sometimes in the morning its gone and sometimes there's an empty take out bag in the bin instead and Stiles can eat whatever his dad left later.

So, he's used to it. Not necessarily being ignored, but having other things put in front of him. He's not monumentally important, has never been anything close to it since his mum died, but. Yeah. It doesn't stop the hurt, the emptiness. He thinks he should be used to it, the way it feels, and he wants to be so bad, but he's not. He's used to it as in, it always feels like this. But then, it always feels that little worse than he expects it to. 

Scott is his bestfriend and together they make up a whole family unit - they are the two sons, John is the dad and Melissa is the mum. Stiles likes how that feels, how it felt. Brothers. Bestfriends. Just, everyone's a bit busier these days. Scott has Allison and the pack, his dad keeps getting called in as a result of all the supernatural stuff going on, and Melissa has to work a bit later to keep the house because Scott keeps staining all his clothes with blood or getting them ripped completely. 

Just busy. Stiles tries to be the same when he wakes up to an empty house, staring at a bland ceiling with an aching pain in his ribs. He tries to be busy on the drive to school and walking in the school corridors, smiling briefly as Scott where he stands with Allison and Jackson and turning his eyes to the floor when Lydia walks by. He taps his pencil against his desk in lessons and tries to listen, to be busy, but there's a fracture inside him where a numbness is spilling out into his body, flooding him and pulling at his mind in long winding headaches.

And Danny asks if he's okay, pats his back, and Stiles just says 'Yeah,' and he knows his heart beat a little too fast.

###### 

He doesn't have an appetite when he gets home. He throws his bag on the floor next to his computer and slumps into his desk chair, feeling the hard material dig into his back. A few months ago he would have been on his computer straight away, researching something for Scott or messing around on a game with Scott. _Scott, Scott, Scott._ He's out with Allison tonight, and maybe Wednesdays used to be their game nights but that doesn't really matter anymore. 

The skin of his hands is oddly cold when he holds them up against his face. It's a clammy, corpse cold and he doesn't think about why he knows how that feels when he grips his head with them and digs his nails into his skull. _I'm fine,_ he tells himself. Great, amazing, hunky dory. 

Letting his head go, he sits back up, taking his elbows off the desk, and takes a deep breath. _Calm down, Stiles_ \- and it kind of makes him want to laugh. _Calm down Stiles, did you take your meds, Stiles._ He bites his lip and thinks about the essay due for History. It's not needed till next week, but Stiles has fuck all else to do.

He avoids the mirror when he takes his Adderal, and feels birds flutter beneath his skin when he reaches for his bag. There's an itch inside to act, to do something - but there's nothing he can do. He's _Stiles_.

When Scott eventually texts him, he turns off his phone.

###### 

The next morning, he's making breakfast when Scott texts him telling him he's getting a lift in with Allison.

That's fine.

Stiles packs away the cereal and ignores the way his stomach is twisting its way round his other organs. He didn't get much sleep last night between the Adderal and the feeling of a knife sinking its way down just behind his lungs. He's tempted to skip school but on top of everything, he doesn't need his dad's disappointment when he finds out. So Stiles throws on a few layers to keep him warm and that pair of jeans that are inexplicably the comfiest and embarks on the drive to school, tapping his wheel and humming something he heard on the radio under his breath. 

"You look tired," is the first thing Isaac says he sees him in the hallways. 

"And, " replies Stiles, opening up his locker, "You have been hanging out with Sourwolf too much. A hello won't kill either of you," Isaac does his shy little laugh, the one Stiles really likes, but its cut off abruptly as Danny appears, eyes focused solely on Isaac. 

Stiles grabs what he needs out of his locker and shoves his Econ book in to get out later, slipping away before the two boys get too gooey with each other. Their relationship is nice and warm and makes Stiles feel like there's a chunk of flesh missing in his chest. He'd ruin the mood if he was around, anyway. 

He's early for class and gets the pleasure of watching Scott walk in with eyes only for Allison. He sits on the desk next to her, and Stiles stares down at the book in front of him as they chat quietly to each other, all toothy smiles and small touches. He tightens his grip on his pen, ignoring the slight movement of them in his peripheral, and pretends it doesn't hurt that Scott didn't even say hi. Didn't ask why Stiles hasn't text him back about anything yet.

They always used to sit together.

The teacher walks in and Stiles floats away with the clouds he watches in the window.

###### 

He's fine.

Rain is hitting against his window in small droplets. From where he lies on his bed he can see the grey of the sky, can hear the slight hum of his computer where he left it on. The world feels abruptly small, compressed, yet there is a reaching ocean just at his fingertips. 

He is landlocked and drowning as the water laps at the tips of his toes.

Stiles curls in on himself on the bed, pushing down on overwhelming emptiness inside that threatens to spill over the edges, to add to the sea that longs to drown him. It leaks out through his eyes, presses down on his chest and causes him to gasp against his curled hands. He's fine, he's fine, and he bites down on the edge of his hand, squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to feel the way his heart seems to seize up at every beat. He's going to have an heart attack. He's going to die, and there's no one around to help him. His dad's not home, and would Scott even answer him if he called? 

The hurt in his chest gets bigger at that, expands into his mouth and he clamps down on a whisper, digs his teeth a little deeper. 

It's too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Isaac texts him.

**Why aren't you in? Are you okay?**

He wants to choke down the sob that escapes him, but there's no one around to try and fool. He thinks that makes it worse. Stiles knows his eyes are red, knows there are shadows under his eyes that would put the solar eclipse to shame, and he knows that even if he went to school, no one would probably notice. And if by some miracle they did, they wouldn't comment. Because he's Stiles.

Stiles is always fine.

It's a thing, with everyone. The drama happens to the Werewolves and the important people. The problem revolves around them and their vendettas and their dead families. Not Stiles. Because Stiles mum died because of a fucking cancer, nothing more sinister. He's got nothing out for nobody but himself, got no substance to who he is. Just a teenage boy. Does his homework, sits on the bench for lacrosse and watches everyone around him live their lives like he should be.

He feels hollowed out, like a bone without any marrow. There's an all consuming darkness inside, pulling at the tendons of his heart and pushing down on his diaphragm, clawing and tearing to make space for itself. He feels more and more like a vessel everyday, a flesh mechanic to hold this ache, to keep it all bundled up inside, lying among his bruised organs.

 _Are you okay?_ And Stile starts to wonder if he ever was. If he's ever going to be.

###### 

It isn't a sudden thing.

Stiles knows it's been getting bad for a while. Knowing it like he knew a week before his mum died. It creeps up, winding around your veins, and maybe you notice the sky is a little bleaker and the days are a bit longer, and maybe you want to ignore it. Your blood runs black and your heart is autumn leaves, and then you have to stop and acknowledge the yellowing tint to your skin as you die from the inside out.

Derek texts for a pack meeting, and Stiles feels slightly hysterical. Pack meeting. Like he's Pack. He texts back saying he's ill and bites down on the fingers he sent the message with, punishing himself. He's not Pack. He's a human he got dragged into this shit. He doesn't get this life, he doesn't deserve the support and love and a sense of being that comes from Pack. He doesn't do the hard bits, the hurting and the fighting, so he shouldn't get the good bits. 

Not anymore.

If someone was there, if anyone wasn't busy, he could look them in the eye and tell them straight he was too ill to go. It wouldn't be a lie.

###### 

Friday is blurry around the edges.

He feels zombie-like and lethargic trudging through the corridor, feel every layer he wears like a heavy weight on his shoulders. His school bag is a brick hitting against his ribs with every step. Dannys says something like, you don't smell ill, but you look it. And Isaac touches his arm, and the corridors all look the same.

He's floaty and undoing at the edges, and then all of a sudden he's having a panic attack in the bathrooms. The piping is hard against his back, digging into his spine, and his nails cut into his neck like scissors through paper. He can't breathe, can't register anything but a suffocating sense of ,em>this is it.

When he comes back down to earth, his neck feels wet and Scott is saying something to him from outside the cubicle door. He tips his head back and fixes his gaze on the broken lighting above.

"Don't worry about it wolfy, it's over now," 

Scott growls.

"What the fuck is going on with you, Stiles," he bangs against the cubicle door. He sounds frustrated and Stiles smiles faintly to himself, still feeling newly emerged from greater depths. It's sort of nice, to have Scott still care enough to get angry.

"Panic attack. It happens to the best of us, I'm sure you've heard." He kind of wants to cry, kind of wants to laugh. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he's almost certain it's Derek asking why all his betas are freaking the fuck out. He wishes panic didn't smell so strong.

His reply just seems to make Scott angrier and Stiles can hear him intake a breath to begin saying something more when the opening of the bathroom door interrupts him.

"Stiles? Oh, Scott. Thank god, Stiles, are you okay?" Stiles just holds his breath and tried to block out Isaac. He doesn't need this right now, he really doesn't. "Scott? Is Stiles okay?" 

"Just great, thanks for asking," Maybe if he's sarcastic enough, they'll leave him alone.

"Stiles? Why can I smell your blood?"

"Oh I was cutting some peppers and my hand slipped - why the fuck do you think, genius." 

Scott cursed.

"Come on Stiles, what's going on?"

If only it were that simple. Stiles sags against the wall, suddenly exhausted. A panic attack at school. Just what he needs right now.

"Can we not with the whole hero act right now. I kind of want you two to fuck off and let me get myself together," He rubs at his neck and feels the stickiness of blood against his palm where his nails dig too far into his neck "... alone."

Someone sighs and Stiles hears the door open and a muttered 'see you later' from Isaac, then there's silence again. He can still see Scott's shadow right behind the door, and wishes he had the decency to stop being such a great fucking guy for a quarter of a second and do what he's been doing since Allison arrived and leave Stiles the fuck alone.

"You too, Scott." He softens his voice, knowing Scott won't leave without something more, "I'll tell you later, alright? Just not now," 

Stiles doesn't cry when Scott finally leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

He can't get up on Friday.

He feels; heavy, dead weight, the mass of water, the core of a dying star. His bones are condensed matter, impossible to shift and digging into his internal organs, puncturing his lungs and filling them with coppery blood. He can almost taste it on the tip of tongue. His joints cut into his skin, tiny little shallow slits where his plasma leaks from.

And he blinks, and it's all gone, and his eyes are heavy and he's just a teenage boy who can't get out of bed. Something in his chest, his heart or his blood heavy lungs, feels horrible and constricted and like rocks in the pockets of the jacket he'd walk into the river with. There's no pain, only an absence of anything succinct capable of expression.

Dust dances in the light that slips from beneath his blinds, and the time on the alarm winks at him in unnatural green. Get up, start the day, be a respectable, normal, citizen. Something blooms where his solar plexus lies, and he closes his eyes against the sensation, feeling it spread to his throat and wring his mouth dry.

His phone doesn't vibrate because his friends don't miss him, and he lets himself fall to unconsciousness.

###### 

When he wakes up next, it's to the feeling of panic tight across his thorax. He gasps heavily, like the oxygen he was getting while asleep wasn't enough, and scrambles upright. His bones that were stars are now helium, feathers and energy - a nausea stirs in his gut, he's too light, too free. He's going to float away into the clouds, forge himself into airless space.

He grips onto his mattress, the maddeningly soft fabric tickling at his warm skin. He should have gone to school; they won't have called his dad, not when he's in senior year, but his dad still might find out. His son fucked up away, god, like him looking like his mother isn't bad enough. He has to go and shame the family, undermine his dads position as Sheriff. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

Trying to stifle a cry, Stiles shift back against the wall, cold plaster sticking to the damp skin of his back, and takes a hand from the mattress. He sinks his teeth into his wrist, squeezing his eyes. He feels... he can't breathe properly, but not in the way any gas could ever help with. There are birds in his skull, lifting his mind up and up and too far from his body. He can't feel his teeth in his wrist, the pain in his chest or the sickness in his body.

It scares him, scares him so bad, and he bites deeper and deeper. _Bring me back, bring me back._ It's just a panic attack, it's nothing else. It just has to finish, has to stop. _Bring me back_ , he whispers against his arm, feeling salvia brush against his parched lips. 

The pain, when it returns, is a blessing. The subtle hurt, the scratches on his neck against the rough wall, the ache of his fingers where they dig into the bed and the pressure on his spine where it protrudes to touch upon the headboard. And his wrist; bloody and slick with tears and spit, clear indents in an almost perfect circle. 

Stiles is good for one thing, most of the time, and that's research. He knows all about bites, Werewolf bites and other bites because one thing leads to another on the internet. Human bits are dirty and pulsating with infection. The thought comes with the feeling of an itch under his epidermis next to his self-inflicted wound, the imaginary squirming and multiplying of bacteria. It makes him want to claw the skin off, to dig it out, but he knows that won't make it better. Won't fix anything when he's already messed everything up so badly.

Tears sting at his eyes again. Crying doesn't help. He fucked up, and he's not going to cost his dad a pretty medical bill because he couldn't stop gnawing on his fucking wrist like a rabid dog. Insurance doesn't cover self harm.

It's a feat to pull himself up. He's not too light anymore, and the absence of the feeling of floating leaves him disorientated. He's not heavy like he was, but his corporeal form is clumsy and too physical, loud feet on carpet and long fingers struggling to grip the bathroom door. He revels in the feeling of cold against his hand, and cold against his forehead when he rests it on the mirror, staring into his own eyes.

They're muddy in the shadow, his eyelashes blending into the bruises below the waterline. He watches his lips tug downwards, watches the way his chin crinkles up and his eyes half shut. Sadness, expression; the material representation of a combination of neurotransmitters diffusing across a synapse. Receptors. Effectors. Sodium ions and potassium pumps. That's all everything he's feeling is. 

_Narcissism,_ he thinks, and he opens the cupboard door take his gaze from himself and to bring out the sparse medical supplies he keeps there. Disinfecting first, and the liquid stains his skin in yellow, drips down the curve of his bone and pools in the niche of his wrist, spilling over and into the wrinkles of his hand. It hurts, in the good way, the cleansing way. He binds it in a bandage, too tight at first and then he unwinds it and does it again, ignoring the imprint marks. Yellow and red show through already. 

What's red, yellow and white?

His smile is grim and sickly as it stretches across bone. It's not funny. It's sad. Or tragic, or 19th century poetry. Something sluggish runs in his veins, slows him down and removes him from everything around him, from the person he is. He's a smile in a mirror. Painted glass.

Nothing else.

**Author's Note:**

> I ain't never seen Teen Wolf in my life so forgive me if I fuck anything up. I just think Stiles is cute and wanted to torture him a lil. I will eventually watch the show after exams...
> 
>  
> 
> [ tumblr](http://norsed.tumblr.com)


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